ABSTRACT
In urban areas, streets occupy more land than any other public use and make up between 25 and 35 percent of all developed land. As an example, if one measures all of the public space in San Francisco including Golden Gate Park, the Presidio, Ocean Beach, and McClaren Park, and add to it all the public buildings, they don’t equal land in the public rights-of-way. Streets are the public realm. They are used for necessary services, transportation, fire and police protection, access to property, and all kinds of social and economic uses. They are not stagnant but rather constantly in change, even though the changes may seem minute, such as repaving. They are owned by the public, which is responsible for them. By locating and designing streets well, one has largely designed the city. In most modern North American cities, and indeed most cities elsewhere in the world, most of the space of city streets is devoted to traffic movement. The functional aspects of streets have received much more attention than their social or community building aspects.
